The present invention relates to a stapler device, and particularly to a stapler device useful in medical suturing. The invention is especially useful in treating urinary stress incontinence, and is described below with respect to such an application, but it will be appreciated that the invention could advantageously be used in other applications as well, such as in treating a recurrent shoulder dislocation condition.
Urinary stress incontinence, i.e., the inability to control urination from the bladder, is a distressing problem for more than ten percent of elderly women as well as for many young women. This condition frequently arises in the following manner: In a normally anatomically positioned bladder, the proximal urethra and the bladder are in pressure continuity with the abdominal cavity, so that an increase in abdominal pressure is transmitted both to the bladder and to the proximal urethra, resulting in normal continence. However, particularly among elderly women, the bladder and the proximal urethra tend to descend from their normal anatomic positions such that the bladder neck and proximal urethra move away from the posterior wall of the pubic bone. When this occurs, the proximal urethra is no longer in pressure continuity with the abdominal cavity; therefore, an increase in intra-abdominal pressure (e.g., by laughing or coughing) results in an increase in the intravesical pressure, but no change in the urethral closing pressure, thereby producing stress incontinence. It also appears that as the bladder descends, the urethra becomes shorter and curved, so that its radial tonic muscle contraction is reduced, contributing to incontinence.
Many treatments have been devised to correct stress incontinence. One treatment is by a surgical operation, involving an incision in the abdominal wall and/or interior vaginal wall, to return the bladder and proximal urethra to their normal anatomic positions by elevating them towards the posterior wall of the pubic bone in order to bring them into pressure continuity with the abdominal cavity. Another medical treatment involves a closed operation in which the bladder neck is elevated by suture threads passing, with the aid of long needles, from both sides of the urethra in the bladder neck to the inferior abdominal wall.